Within a one week span, this mama’s heart had to process prom dress shopping with my daughter, scheduling her first college visit to an out of state school (gulp), and watching her drive down the street by herself for the first time after passing her driver’s license test.
While she is enjoying her newfound freedom and growing into adulthood, my husband and I find ourselves feeling somewhat bewildered.
Where has the time gone?
It seems like just yesterday we were juggling a diaper bag, scheduling plans around nap times, and scrounging in the backseat for that darn pacifier that had fallen out again.
And yet, here we are.
When pondering all of these changes and reflecting on the passage of time, I was reminded of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, my favorite T.S. Eliot poem.
I realized it had been (literally) years since I read the poem, and yet some lines were still fresh in my mind.
There will be time, there will be time.
A lengthy stream of consciousness work, it is as simple in message as it is complex in design.
Do I dare disturb the universe?
It centers around a middle-aged man who is filled with regret for the chances not taken, the life not lived, the risks he was too scared to take, the things he should have said but never did.
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and “Do I dare?”
The narrator has spent his life in a state of indecision, too scared to act on impulse or voice his true feelings. He is paralyzed by fear, always putting off for tomorrow what he should be doing today. He seems to think he can keep putting things off, that there will always be another chance.
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
Reading the poem in my early 20s, I remember being struck by how sad it was, and also having strong (perhaps naive) feelings of “That will never be me! I’m going to live my life to the fullest!”
I reread the poem last week for the first time in over 25 years, and this time it brought to mind John Lennon’s words, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.”
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.
The “coffee spoon moments” are those mundane tasks and everyday events that happen from day to day. The poem’s narrator feels he has missed out on what’s most important by not voicing his true feelings, and has instead focused his time and energy on those simple, ordinary, coffee spoon moments. His life has passed him by while he was busy with other, unimportant things.
While I have no regrets related to undeclared love like the narrator, watching my daughter enter adulthood leaves me reflecting on all of those seemingly insignificant “coffee spoon” moments we have shared with her over the past 17 years.
Moments of board games, roasting s’mores, reading books, snuggling while watching movies, making cookies, playing school. Moments that didn’t seem all that profound at the time. We were just parenting.
But not everything that is significant involves a decision that disturbs the universe.
Those little coffee spoon moments can be pretty special, too.
Amy Bellamy, Author 